In a computer graphical user interface, a “drag and drop” operation is an operation of (or support for an operation of) moving a cursor that is displayed within the graphical user interface, using a cursor control, onto a virtual object that is also displayed within the graphical user interface, and dragging the virtual object to a different location within the graphical user interface, or onto another virtual object displayed within the graphical user interface, using the cursor control. In general, a drag and drop operation can be used to invoke many kinds of actions, or create various types of associations between two virtual objects.
A web application is a computer software application that is accessed over a network, such as the Internet or an intranet. A web application also includes a computer software application that is hosted in a web browser-controlled environment (such as a Java® applet), or coded in a web browser-supported language (such as JavaScript), combined with a web browser-rendered markup language (such as Hypertext Markup Language (“HTML”)). A web application is generally reliant upon a web browser that renders the web application executable.
While drag and drop operations are generally common in computer software applications, drag and drop operations are not common in web applications. This is because, in previous web applications, drag and drop operations between components of a web application (such as a web component and a visualization component) were difficult to implement due to technical differences between the components of the web application.